Murder can be fun aka a.., p.2
Murder Can Be Fun # aka A Plot for Murder, page 2
But dammit, he hadn't been drunk. A little cheerful maybe, but not drunk enough to have done or said anything then that he wouldn't remember now. Matter of fact, even when he was really drunk, he never did or said anything he couldn't remember afterward. He might make an ass of himself, but he'd always remember every detail of the process. Not a comforting faculty, sometimes, but nice to know in this particular instance.
He hadn't mentioned the script to a soul; be was sure of that. He'd stake his life on it.
He went into the bathroom and switched on the light over the medicine cabinet and looked at his reflection in the glass. He looked normal enough. He didn't look as though he was beginning to strip gears. He didn't look a day over his thirty-seven years either, although he knew that sooner or later he'd have to cut down on the drinking or he'd begin to show it. But here and now, as of this August morning, he didn't look like a crack-pot.
He switched off the light and went out to the telephone again. He'd go nuts if he didn't talk it over with someone.
But who? Harry Burke was out of town. Less than a week ago he'd gone north for a two weeks' vacation, so he'd still be there. Lee Stenger was on the wagon. How about Dick Kreburn? Dick was one of his newer friends, but he was a good listener and a good chess player, and maybe he could think out an answer for this if anybody could.
He rang Dick's number on the phone and stood there holding the receiver and hoping Dick would answer. A quiet guy, Dick Kreburn, but one who said something when he did talk. He played the part of Reginald Mereton in Millie's Millions, and Tracy had written in that part especially to get Dick a job. He'd written it so closely to Dick's capabilities that landing the job for him had been a cinch, even though what experience Dick had had was on the stage rather than before a mike.
But there wasn't any answer and he put the receiver back on the hook. Come to think of it, Dick was probably still on his way home from the studio; he'd been in today's script.
Tracy put on his coat and hat to go out, then remembered he hadn't finished his drink and went back to take care of that. But before he reached the drink there was a knock on the door. Tracy opened it and was pleasantly surprised. He said, “Hullo, Millie.”
It wasn't the Millie of Millie's Millions. That Millie was a fictional character, and Millie Wheeler wasn't. Millie Wheeler was the girl who had the apartment across the hall. The mild coincidence of the names was one of those little things that make life difficult.
When, four months ago, Tracy had rented the apartment at the Smith Arms, he had noticed the name MILLICENT WHEELER on the mailbox next to his, but he'd thought nothing of it then. No more than he had thought of the name of the building itself.
But seeing that name — Smith Arms — over the doorway every time he entered the building, and finding it on his mail that came out of the mailbox, had become by now a definite source of annoyance.
So, in another manner, had Millie Wheeler. He liked the girl. She was as friendly as a collie pup — up to a point, at any rate — and you couldn't help but like her. She had big blue eyes that would have been a hit on television if only her nose was a bit smaller and she took a little more trouble with her hair. And she had a grin that was too wide, or seemed to be until you got to know her well enough to know that she meant every millimeter of it; then you didn't notice its width.
But the trouble was that once you knew her, it was utterly impossible to call her Millicent, or even to think of her by that name. She was, and had to be, Millie.
And Tracy would sit down to write a Millie's Millions script and find that Millie Mereton kept getting mixed up in his mind with Millie Wheeler. Millie Mereton, who was a figment of his imagination, would start doing and saying things that Millie Wheeler, the flesh-and-blood Millie, would say and do.
And that would immediately gum the script and he'd have to yank the page out of the Underwood and start over again. Millie Wheeler was definitely out of character as the heroine of a soap opera. Millie Mereton was born to suffer for the edification of her public — to suffer and suffer and suffer. But Millie Wheeler, darn her, was quite capable of laughing off the very things that made Millie Mereton surfer most.
No, definitely, the public that suffered with Millie M. would never for a moment tolerate the attitude toward life of Millie W. She was flippant. She was fresh. She was almost everything a radio heroine dares not be.
But right now Tracy was more than glad to see her. He took off his hat and stepped back.
“Going out?” she asked him.
“No,” he said. “I mean, yes.” He grinned. “You caught me on that one. I don't know whether I'm coming or going, at the moment. Come on in anyway. Have a drink.”
She came in and sat down on the arm of the Morris chair while Tracy went out to the kitchenette again. There was just enough left in the bottle for two drinks. He mixed them and brought them in.
“Bumps,” Millie said, and she took a sip. “I just came to bring back the cigarettes I stole last night. Not the same ones, of course, but the same brand and just as good.”
“Last night, Millie?”
“Sure. Yesterday evening.” She took a package of cigarettes from her handbag and tossed them onto the desk. “I burgled the joint. Just after you left.”
“How do you mean, burgled?” Tracy's face was very serious. He put his glass down on the desk and stood staring at her. “You mean I didn't lock the door? It was locked all right when I came home at half past one.
Her eyes opened wider as she looked at him. “Tracy! Honest, I didn't dream you'd mind, or I'd never have — Don't look at me like that. I'm sorry, if you really minded. And I'll never do it again.”
Tracy pushed the glass back and sat on a corner of the desk. He said, “Listen, Millie. Something funny happened last night — I mean, today. Hell, I mean that there's a funny connection between something I wrote last night and something that actually happened today. Millie, I don't give a damn what you came in here and swiped; you're welcome to the whole joint. But tell me just what happened, about you being here.”
“Tracy, was something stolen?”
He tried to look a little less grim, and to smile reassuringly. After all, it was utterly silly to think that Millie could have anything to do with a murder.
He pitched his voice a little lower. “I'll tell you the whole story, Millie. I've been wanting to get it off my chest. But tell me first how long you were here and what time. And — didn't I lock the door?”
“It was around half past eight, Tracy. I don't know exactly. I was getting ready to take a bath and go out, and I discovered I was out of cigarettes and wanted a smoke. I slipped on my housecoat and was going to knock on your door and borrow one. I opened my door and just as I stepped out into the hall I saw you closing the door of the elevator.”
Tracy said, “Check. It was just about half past eight when I went out.”
“I called after you,” Millie said, “but the elevator door was going shut and you didn't hear me. And there I was, still without a cigarette. I thought that if you hadn't locked your door, you wouldn't mind if I borrowed a package. I knew you kept a carton in your desk drawer.”
“But didn't I lock the door?”
“You meant to. You'd nipped on the latch, but you hadn't pulled the door tightly enough shut and it hadn't caught. So I went in, just for a minute, and got the cigarettes, and when I came out I pulled the door so it did latch. That's why you found it locked when you came home later. Now what's it all about, Tracy?”
Tracy sighed. He took a long pull at his drink and then looked at her again. “If only that door had stayed unlocked longer, so somebody else could have been in here, I'd feel better about it. Now, dammit, I know it was locked from a minute after I left until I came home. See?”
“See what?”
“Look,” Tracy said, “I was working on a script. Not a Millie's Millions script. A different one. There was a page in the typewriter. Did you happen to look at it?”
Millie turned a little pink just above the neckline. “Well, I took a peek at a line or two, yes. I didn't mean to, Tracy, but I just couldn't help it.”
“Read enough to know what it was about?”
She nodded. “It was an outline for a whodunit.” She pursed her lips a moment and thought. “It was about a guy who disguised himself as Santa Claus so he could go to somebody's office and murder him, and nobody could identify him afterward. It was a good gimmick, Tracy. I liked the idea.”
“So did somebody else.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen a today's paper, Millie?”
“A morning one. I didn't read much, though, except the headlines and the funnies.”
Tracy said, “Then try an afternoon one. Look.” He handed her the first section of the newspaper that had been lying on the desk and pointed out the story in the second column.
Millie read it slowly, all of it. She looked up.
“Dineen,” she said. “That's your boss, isn't it, Tracy?”
“It was. Listen, kid, here's what makes it tough. I thought up that idea last night at seven o'clock. I thought I was the only person that knew about it, and now there are two of us — wait — did you tell anybody about the script? Think hard, did you mention it to anyone at all?”
Millie shook her head emphatically. “Nobody, Tracy. I'll swear to it. Honest.”
“Neither did I.”
“But, Tracy, it must be just a coincidence. It couldn't be anything else, could it?”
Tracy said, “If it had happened to a stranger, Millie, I'd say sure it was a coincidence. But somebody knew and was connected with — Oh, hell, it's still got to be a coincidence. What else could it be? I'm going out and forget about it. Want to come along?” Millie did.
CHAPTER 2
TRACY, I fear, was drunk. Not that you'd have guessed it to look at him, unless you knew him pretty — well. He could hold his liquor. Maybe he couldn't hold Millie — he'd lost her half an hour ago — but he could hold his liquor.
Well, he thought, let Millie take care of herself. She could do that all right. And the world was a strange and monstrous place and there were large and profound things to be said about it, as long as there was someone to listen.
And though Millie had disappeared, there was Baldy, the bartender, as a perfect listener to take her place. Perfect except that once in a while he'd have to go down to the other end of the bar to dish out another couple of beers to the two men standing there.
“It all gets back to the same thing, Baldy,” Tracy said. “It gets back to whether murder can be fun. What do you think?”
“I think you're nuts.”
Tracy waved a hand airily, fortunately missing his glass. “Utterly irrelevant and beside the point. Which still is: Can murder be fun?”
“Do you mean murdering somebody, or getting murdered?”
“Ah,” said Tracy. “There is the point. Baldy, with unerring accuracy you have put your pudgy finger upon the very crux of the question. To a normal mind, neither getting murdered nor committing murder is really enjoyable.”
“But to a guy like you it's different?”
Tracy frowned. “Baldy, you're not taking this seriously. I assure you with drunken dignity that I have a normal mind. I have a certificate to prove it. Have you?”
“All right, I ain't. So what?”
“So we get back to our question. The answer is neither. I mean neither getting killed nor killing is fun. But murder can be fun. Ask me how.”
“Why should I?”
“Because if you do I will buy you and myself a drink each.”
Baldy poured them and rang up the sale..
“Skoal!” he said. They drank.
Tracy said, “All right, go ahead.”
“Go ahead and what?”
“Ask me how.”
“Okay. How?”
“If you buy me a drink,” Tracy said, “I'll tell you.”
Baldy shook his head mournfully but not negatively. He poured the drinks.
“Prosit!” said Tracy. They drank.
Tracy said, “And now I shall tell you. Murder can be fun only when it is contemplated abstractly, as an intellectual exercise. Why, Baldy, are detective stories so popular?”
“Because people read “em?”
“And people read them because they like them. Because murder can be fun — if it's fictional and not factual murder. If you bought a detective story and there wasn't a murder in it, you'd throw it away.
Baldy said, “I don't read books. But a guy tried to murder me once.”
“That's nice,” said Tracy, “but irrelevant. What I want to know is, do you listen to the radio?”
“Sure.”
“What programs do you like best?”
“The crime ones. Like Gang Busters and—”
“Baldy, you really are the guy I'm looking for. I shall buy you and myself a drink each. No, not yet. After you listen to this and tell me what you think of it.”
From his inner coat pocket he pulled out a folded manuscript and held it so Baldy could read the title page. It read:
MURDER CAN BE FUN
A series of 15-minute scripts dramatizing fictional crimes, complete with clues and solvable by the listener —
Tracy said, “Baldy, let's get serious and sober. I really want your honest opinion on this. You listen to crime programs on the radio; what would you think of this one? It isn't going to be too much different from some that are on the air right now, but there is one difference and we'll get to it. We start off with the announcer saying—”
He leafed over to the second page.
“—with the announcer saying, 'Murder can be fun. We mean, of course, when it's not a real murder, but one that is made up to test your ingenuity as a detec —'”
“What's ingenuity?”
“Thanks,” said Tracy. “We'll change it. That's just the kind of thing I wanted to find out. I never thought of it. '—to test your ability as a detective. The dramatization that follows contains all the clues necessary for a clever sleuth — such as you may think yourself to be — to solve the crime. Listen, and then decide who was guilty. Don't just guess. The clues are there, if you're smart enough to spot them. Today's case is entitled— '”
Tracy looked up. “And then he names the case and then there's time out for a commercial by our sponsor, God blam him, and — Know what 'blam' means?”
“Huh? No.”
“Juxtaposition of 'bless' and 'damn' made up especially for sponsors. Know what 'juxtaposition' means?”
“Nope.”
“Then why should you? Anyway, after the commercial there's a fanfare and we go right into the Case of the Foozled Whatzit, or whatever it may be. So far, so good?”
“Sounds okay,” said Baldy, “but listen, why couldn't you leave out the commercial? Wouldn't radio programs be better without them?”
“Baldy, that is a brilliant thought. I dare hope that it is symptomatic of the awakening mind of America. Anyway, when I get a sponsor, I'll take it up with him. I'll quote you to him and tell him you'll buy him a drink if only he'll leave out the commercials.
“But back to the program, Baldy. We are now safely past the first commercial and into the body of the program, and that's where there's going to be a slight difference in treatment. I'm going to make it funny, gag it up to a point this side of farce by having a detective character who is a dumb “cluck and who can't solve the crime, and that's why it's got to be left to the listener to do it for him.
“All the clues I plant go right over his head and if he picks anybody to arrest it's going to be the wrong guy, for the wrong reasons. It's going to be, I hope, a good comedy script, good enough in its own right to live up to the general program title of Murder Can Be Fun — and at the same time provide those clues for an intellectual exercise for those of the listeners whose minds work that way. Because of that combination, it won't be like any other program that's ever been on the air. At any rate, it combines features of several types of programs that are on. You follow me, Baldy?”
“Sure. But how does the listener find out if he guessed right about who really done it?”
“That comes at the end of the program, after another commercial. The original announcer comes back on for a few sentences after the commercial announcer is through and presents the solution and tells what the clues were, if you missed them. Well?”
“It's okay. Murder Can Be Fun, huh? What time's it on the air?”
Tracy sighed. “I've got a few of them roughed out. I'll have to have at least a dozen scripts completed before I can even talk to anybody about it.”
“You been talking about it just now.”
“Don't be an ass, Baldy. I mean before I talk to anybody at the network office, or to a possible sponsor. And probably it'll have to go on sustaining for a while, and — well, skip it. How about our drinks?”
Baldy poured them. He said, “I was just kidding, asking when it was on. Say, Tracy, didn't you once tell me you worked for a guy named Dineen, who was KRBY's program director or something? Wasn't that the guy got bumped off today by a guy in a Santa Claus suit?” Tracy nodded.
“Well, look, why don't you use the idea that guy used in bumping off Dineen? That was as slick an idea as I ever run into. Walking right down Broadway in broad daylight masked to the eyebrows, and getting away with it. Wouldn't that be a swell idea for you to use on one of your programs?”
Tracy frowned. He opened his mouth to speak, but was spared answering. The outer door of the tavern burst open and Millie Wheeler blew in.
“Tracy,” she said, “I had the darndest time finding you. Were you trying to give me the run-around? If Mike hadn't told me you'd probably be here—”
“Me?” demanded Tracy indignantly, his attention successfully diverted from Baldy's unfortunate suggestion. “Me give you the run-around? When you went off dancing with that gigolo at the Roosevelt? And then disappeared with him?”
Millie perched herself on the stool beside him at the bar. “He wasn't a gigolo, Tracy. He was an insurance salesman. He had a nice policy. And after the dance I didn't disappear with him; I went to the ladies' room to powder my nose. Don't you know a lady always has to powder her nose when she's been drinking beer?”
